A few months ago, I deleted Hinge. I had downloaded it in Lent last year with the hope that it would add some fuel to my dating rut. After all, how hard could it be to match with a good looking guy in a university city? If you’ve ever used Hinge in Cambridge, you’re probably smirking at how far my expectation was from reality. While it is typical of dating app algorithms to showcase their best profiles at the beginning to get you hooked, before steadily declining in quality, my experience started off poor and plateaued at terrible. I quickly grew tired of swiping past photos of mediocre men posing with fish or covering their faces with balaclavas and, worst of all, being told I was most compatible with people I had already buried deep in the friend-zone. Even when I did receive the occasional like from a nice and normal seeming guy, the impersonal nature of meeting online prevented me from taking things further.

So naturally, I thought I was done with online dating. Sure, I could have tried Tinder or Bumble – but how different could they be? That was until I heard about Raya, the exclusive celebrity dating app famed for being harder to get onto than a degree at Harvard Business School. When my friend finally had her application from three years ago approved, she sent our group chat a screenshot of Jude Bellingham’s profile (and was subsequently warned that screenshots are forbidden). I begged her for a referral, and four days later, I received the anticipated text message that I was in!

“I couldn’t wait to tell my friends that I had become a proud member of the exclusive eight per cent”

For those of you who haven’t heard of Raya before, let me give you some context. The private membership-based app was founded by David Gendelman in 2014 and has never once launched a PR or marketing campaign, relying solely instead on word of mouth promotion. It brands itself on privacy and authenticity, with all applicants having to undergo multiple forms of identity verification and receive referrals from existing members before they can use the app. In 2018, The New York Times reported that only eight per cent of applicants are accepted, with a backlog of over 100,000 people on the waiting list. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends that I had become a proud member of the exclusive eight per cent.

But at the steep cost of £20 a month, is Raya worth it? At first, my subscription brought all the excitement it promised. Every one in three profiles I swiped through was a professional athlete, ranging from Premier League Football players to members of the NFL. Another big name I spotted was Sex Education star Asa Butterfield but, to the disappointment of my friend who had heard he used the app, I failed to encounter Paul Mescal. A slight criticism I have is the platform’s tendency to showcase profiles from halfway across the globe, but with the option to select the places you are travelling to in the near future, I think it works on the assumption that most users are actually rich enough to hop on a plane for a date.

“After a couple of weeks, I had dropped out of university and was planning my wedding to an A-list celebrity”

After a couple of weeks, I had dropped out of university and was planning my wedding to an A-list celebrity. Only joking – my most notable match was a football player in the U21 Leeds United team, and after he made the same weird comments that men on normal dating apps tend to do, I decided he wasn’t the one for me. A common criticism of online dating is that it gives people the illusion of unlimited choice, and I soon discovered that this is even more accurate when you’re a normal person using an app for celebrities. Raya promised so much, but whether my lack of success was a case of me being a small fish in a big famous pond or because of the app itself, I realised my fundamental problem with online dating wasn’t going to be solved by the shiny ego-boost of getting accepted onto an exclusive platform.

I don’t regret downloading Raya. It gave me plenty to talk about with friends and a fun story for Varsity, but I can’t say it’s been life-changing in terms of romance. While I did encounter a higher calibre of men and far fewer fish photos than on Hinge, it doesn’t change the fact that Raya is just another dating app. The internet will never be a substitute for real connection in my life, so next month I’ll be saving my £20 and wasting it on something else instead. Or am I just upset I didn’t match with Jude Bellingham? That’s a secret I’ll never tell.

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